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BuzzJack Music Forum _ Eurovision Song Contest _ Debate: was Olly Alexander's performance 'shocking'?
Posted by: J00prstar 12th May 2024, 06:10 AM
Social media seems to be going off with this angle and I'm not sure if I'm in a bubble (in which it's not) and these are a minority of people being oversensitive, or if it actually is.
Shocking here in the sense of 'scandalous' etc. as opposed to 'shockingly bad' or 'deserving of low points'.
Personally I didn't find it at all shocking. It was a performance with male dancers who did a bit of dancing together performed by a gay lead artist who was pretty fully clothed. But feel free to disagree, the point of this poll is 'ask the audience'.
Posted by: Sour Candy 12th May 2024, 06:15 AM
Bambie Thug wasn't seen as too shocking so cannot see how Olly was.
Posted by: Bjork 12th May 2024, 06:25 AM
Zero shocking as scandalous
100% shocking as shockingly bad, the tiniest vocals, everybody I waas wtching thought his microphone wasn't working, that's how poor his vocals were, definetely the poorest performance of the show
Posted by: J00prstar 12th May 2024, 06:29 AM
Comments like 'it was too gay for voters' 'it was simulating sex' etc. I'm like...
It wasn't even unless that minimal kind of two men dancing together is 'too sexual' for general straight audiences. Some of whom should be familiar with Olly as an actor from It's A Sin...
Posted by: Bjork 12th May 2024, 06:34 AM
it's 2024 and it's Eurovision it's normal to have over-sexualised performances and no one cares
the 2 dancers x Spain were far more sexual
Olly's nill points were cos of his poor vocals not cos of the dancers
Posted by: darrens94 12th May 2024, 06:46 AM
No it wasn’t shocking and I think that was the problem. I think when they decided to do this staging they were hoping to shock and get people talking and cause a bit of controversy. The problem is no one really was interested with everything else in the competition that was going on. Visually it looked great but apart from that it had nothing going for it.
Posted by: Sour Candy 12th May 2024, 06:48 AM
Somebody said that it was "too music video" like and I agree. It was a nice idea on paper, but not really on the ESC stage.
Also repeating my earlier point that there were other artists (Silvester, Nemo) who did "the Olly Alexander" better than Olly himself. He sounded like an amateur compared to those.
Posted by: J00prstar 12th May 2024, 07:01 AM
This was exactly what I thought too. Olly was like the B version of Nemo's performance in many ways unfortunately/coincidentally
Posted by: GTH 12th May 2024, 07:04 AM
I think it may have been for some of the more conservative countries. The massive codpiece was also a bit much. Being a married gay man obviously I had no issues myself, but I can understand see why it would put some off. A lot of Social media comments I have seen were negative on it not being suitable for families. 
Beyond the performance, I just don’t think the song was strong enough. Still better than half the songs they did better than it still, but when have the public votes ever been down to that.
Posted by: ___∆___ 12th May 2024, 07:52 AM
All I’ve seen is comments that it was - gay porn, homoerotic., etc
I mean if you can’t be gay at Eurovision….
Posted by: Smint 12th May 2024, 07:57 AM
Not for me in the slightest. I liked it. But full on male homo-erotica (with no females to balance it like with the Spanish song) probably is for other audiences as straight audience can find it too much. Those were the comments from some people in the group that I was watching it with too. Disappointedly.
Posted by: Last Dreamer 12th May 2024, 08:02 AM
Irish performance was million times weirder and should have been banned.
Posted by: Liam sota 12th May 2024, 08:17 AM
Calling it shocking gives it a higher value than it needs, it felt like softcore porn and unnecessary for sure but shocking? More like trying too hard cringey. Of course this will be off putting to a lot of people I'm sure if the UK could vote for its own act he still wouldn't get 12 points. You can sexualise in an artistic or shocking way but this just seemed??? Not to mention it probably made it difficult to sing in tune doing all that which is something he struggled with anyway. Nobody on earth would have won Eurovision with that generic song but I dont think he helped himself with the porno
Posted by: Iz 🌟 12th May 2024, 08:24 AM
I did find that it was a bit much for the average viewer at home, not necessarily because it was homoerotic, a similar sort of straight gurning would have also come across as overly sexual I think to my focus group of my family. Add to that that the staging was closed off from the rest of the crowd and the only thing you can focus on is how close he's getting with his dancers and it all comes off a little bit uncomfortable, while the song was not good enough to let that slide.
Posted by: Hassaan 12th May 2024, 08:33 AM
I think the choreography affected his vocals a bit too but maybe the rest of the world just didn't like the song.
Posted by: JulianT 12th May 2024, 08:33 AM
If it had been shocking it might have done better. It didn’t really tell a story - it was just a load of guys in a locker room. I was watching with some gay British non hardcore fans and they just said “OK - so what?”
Posted by: Qween 12th May 2024, 08:36 AM
No. It was a popstar performance, but people just love to be offended, especially by anything remotely queer. I’d wager Spain and Finland were more “shocking” if we want to make comparisons.
Posted by: gooddelta 12th May 2024, 08:42 AM
I think shocking is expected these days, so I’d say no.
I’m not even sure the vocal was the issue, would he have scored more if he’d just stood in one place and sang the song pitch perfect?
Or as usual were we overshadowed by bigger songs? Certainly it deserved *something* on the televote, and it’s true that the UK has to work harder for televotes than other countries due to our lack of neighbours and diaspora etc so zero is always a possibility with a song that doesn’t fully stand out as one of the top best, but it wouldn’t have been in my first five to vote for if I was voting outside the UK, so perhaps the song just got left behind a bit.
The BBC can be proud of the effort they have put in over the last few years in terms of upping the ante on staging etc, but we absolutely must now focus on making sure the SONG is a 10/10 moment every year. And then try and match that with a strong vocalist who has stage presence and is going to motivate the public to want to vote for you above all else. There are so many performers in this country who I’m sure tick all these boxes, the BBC need to find one of them. But put the song search first, not the performer search. We haven’t managed top ten with any of the names we’ve sent - Blue, Engelbert, Bonnie, Olly so I don’t think looking for a very well known artist is the goal.
Posted by: Qween 12th May 2024, 08:50 AM
If we take the view that we’re improving one aspect each year, then hopefully next year we can finally get a good enough singer / a good enough song and then smash in 2026 *.*
Posted by: JackJones 12th May 2024, 08:58 AM
Yes in a way that some juries did vote for it, otherwise no.
Posted by: J00prstar 12th May 2024, 09:35 AM
What??
Posted by: ___∆___ 12th May 2024, 09:35 AM
Honestly this - we are improving and certainly applying more effort rather than just sending a reality show reject with a mid tempo ballad.
I just hope we continue with the same effort and it doesn’t deter established singers and songwriters following on from this year.
Posted by: ___∆___ 12th May 2024, 09:52 AM
In other news Nicki French is currently #7 on the Estonian iTunes Charts with our 2000 entry ‘Dont Play That Song Again’ - maybe that’s what Europe want from us 
Posted by: The Dong Contest 12th May 2024, 10:12 AM
100% shocking as shockingly bad, the tiniest vocals, everybody I waas wtching thought his microphone wasn't working, that's how poor his vocals were, definetely the poorest performance of the show
100% THIS!!
Posted by: The Dong Contest 12th May 2024, 10:13 AM
What an apt name for any UK Eurovision entry that isn't Sam Ryder!!! (Or Andrew Lloyd Webber or Electro Velvet)
Posted by: Scene 12th May 2024, 10:48 AM
Not at all shocking.
Next year’s UK entry will hopefully be a mix of strong vocals, a WOW song and visually electrifying performance (like Ireland’s this year). Someone said earlier about a rock/opera act - brilliant idea!
Posted by: p a v 12th May 2024, 11:05 AM
People will find scandalous anything that isn’t a white straight cis man singing about liking cars, so who the f*** cares really
Posted by: witchsting 12th May 2024, 11:06 AM
I cackle at the fact there was even talk about the performance being too "out there" or homoerotic like Spain yet Spain got a higher televoting than us. In terms of shocking, Ireland is a lot more shocking but they were rewarded for that. I thought the contrary is true unfortunately which makes me think the performance only had an elaborate staging with good play on gravity and dizziness. To me the problem was the song and vocals.
Posted by: p a v 12th May 2024, 11:08 AM
We’ll always have dolboyebs like this one below
Posted by: witchsting 12th May 2024, 11:09 AM
Not you trying to ban paganism
Posted by: Ansel 12th May 2024, 11:24 AM
Honestly people who found the performance shocking should probably go outside more, plenty of acts inside and outside of Eurovision have had dancers acting like that. I mean it's hardly milkmaids churning butter?
No one I was watching with (including straight people!) found it shocking, the only thing that surprised them was that the UK was sending something with a stage presence tbh.
Posted by: Chez Wombat 12th May 2024, 12:29 PM
I don't think 'shocking' is the right word, but I sense the overt homoerotic nature of the performance was literally all that stuck with most of the audience, as the song itself was extremely forgettable in a really strong night of standout performances and song structures and that would've put off the more conservative voting bases and there were way more entries fulfilling the 'shocking' criteria. Not that that was by any means the main factor - the poor vocals stood out particularly.
We did alright with the juries so this wasn't a major failure, but I don't know how many times it needs to be said - midtempo pop is not a vote winner, we need a strong, standout song that doesn't sound like anything else there and/or has a killer chorus or vocal. We have so, so many examples in our music industry, I am starting to wonder if it's interference from higher above that demand it be kept radio friendly.
Posted by: darrens94 12th May 2024, 01:33 PM
We did alright with the juries so this wasn't a major failure, but I don't know how many times it needs to be said - midtempo pop is not a vote winner, we need a strong, standout song that doesn't sound like anything else there and/or has a killer chorus or vocal. We have so, so many examples in our music industry, I am starting to wonder if it's interference from higher above that demand it be kept radio friendly.
It’s always going to be radio friendly because of it being a BBC One and Radio 2 entertainment show. So if you we are going to send middle of the road pop we need the staging and performer to elevate it like Sam did.
Posted by: eurovision4ever 12th May 2024, 01:43 PM
It was more the fact he couldn’t sing and could hardly hear him
Posted by: The Dong Contest 12th May 2024, 01:46 PM
Oh nooo, a non Christian nooo!!!
Posted by: JulianT 12th May 2024, 01:47 PM
Maybe the BBC are half the problem then - the process needs to be overseen by people who will think outside the box much more.
Posted by: gooddelta 12th May 2024, 02:18 PM
Yes, I suspect the BBC requirement for something that works on BBC1, Radio 1 and Radio 2 simultaneously is definitely part of the issue and will keep holding us back apart from on the odd occasion that we have a top drawer singer/performer like Sam.
I don't really see the situation changing any time soon either. Even when we had a national final, the six songs were always varying shades of beige each year.
Posted by: J00prstar 12th May 2024, 04:53 PM
No one I was watching with (including straight people!) found it shocking, the only thing that surprised them was that the UK was sending something with a stage presence tbh.
Right?? People on socials are really out here acting like straight people are always chaste and modest. I was reading what felt like some light homophobia in the tone of the comments but wanted to be sure I wasn't projecting.
Posted by: Jordanlee 12th May 2024, 11:24 PM
I think Olly attempted to be shocking but it didn’t necessarily pay off
I think he spent too much effort on the performance / staging / attempt at choreography / shock factor that the vocals took a huge nosedive. It’s a shame because he’s far better a performer than what he’s shown us at Eurovision.
I just hope we get someone next year who’s actually able to confidently perform. Sam Ryder can’t just be a fluke we have to manage it again and I do think we’d be capable with the right song.
Posted by: Popchartfreak 13th May 2024, 09:06 AM
I was 9 when I watched my first Eurovision, kids these days are watching it younger than I was. It's a family occasion, not a niche market for niche people and it's global, covering a lot of cultures, many of which don't have homo-erotic images on telly (the 69 was part of the routine, however briefly). Not against it myself, quite the reverse, but I'm not the target voting audience cos I've never voted. Love it, but dont vote. A lot of my family vote though.
From a voting point of view, have homo-erotic-tinged routines ever done well at Eurovision? Not so much. If there's prancing behind a female singer, people arent that bothered, if there's male "nudity" and it's amusing, people arent that bothered. Not saying anything is right or wrong, but things just are, and if you want to get big votes you need to appeal to everyone - first and foremost with an in-ya-face vocal performance and a strong song, and then try not to mess it up with staging choices. If you are dancing hard and singing you need to make sure you can multi-task, cos if not get someone else to do the dancing...
Dizzy was a classy song, IMO, but it's a grower not a show'er, and winning Eurovision is all about show'ers - see Snap! in 2023 for the ultimate grower....
Posted by: Jessie Where 13th May 2024, 10:07 AM
No, only to the gammon of Twitter and the Facebook mums.
Posted by: Smint 14th May 2024, 11:02 PM
Article about it. Yes it's that horrible Julia Hartley Brewer but it's illustrative of what I think is common, garden homophobia dressed up as "too offensive". She says she would feel the same about heterosexual nudity but funnily, enough it's the male gay one that she singles out.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/05/14/pearl-clutching-tv-host-compares-eurovision-to-gay-porn-film-on-steroids/
Yes you could argue she's a reactionary bigot but for me, it subtly shows that homophobia is on the rise and many people are now saying the "quiet bit loud". Don't want to be negative but guess it shows what we are dealing with in society.
Posted by: Scene 15th May 2024, 06:07 AM
The gammon of Twitter!!!!
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